Take Three
by even lovers drown
Summary: "I want this," Beck assures her, "but this morning you threatened to burn me with your hair curler." / Jade and Beck readjust to being back together again, and Andre decides that he really needs to find Tori a new hobby.


**AN:** Takes place after One Thousand Berry Balls and was beta-read by By the Sounding Sea. Also a gift for puns and roses.

It's my first time writing fluff, so be nice please?

* * *

All his life, Braden has been a wallflower; most of his peers don't even know his last name. He doesn't mind this, but sometimes he wishes that he weren't overshadowed so that fate might smile upon him one day and grant him luck.

But it'd never be today, no. Not the day of his major history test. That would have been too ideal. He usually gets by with these things, but Jade West had stolen his notes earlier and had set him far behind schedule without showing any remorse, without any words at all actually.

She only had to look at him, and now he's on the floor of the hallway surrounded by his sloppy notes, frantically trying to study, his poor back aching.

The morning gets even better when Jade and Beck's voices precede their presence as usual. Braden looks up as they walk together through the entrance. Jade's screaming something unintelligible. It's too many words in one breath for Braden's already flustered brain, so he shoves his papers in his bag and sprints elsewhere.

Ignoring their audience, the couple make their way through the hallway until they reach Beck's locker. "You haven't given me an answer yet," Jade snaps.

"I want this," Beck assures her, "but this morning, you threatened to burn me with your hair curler."

"What? That didn't happen."

"Yeah, it did. You were waving it around my face."

"I hadn't even turned it on then!"

"Sorry, I was too busy trying not to get my eyeballs singed to notice!" He flails his arms in frustration and then lets them fall at his sides with a loud thump.

Jade takes a step back, incredulous. "Are you sassing me, Beck Oliver?"

"No sassing," says a passing Lane, who slips a warning note into Beck's hands.

Beck regards the note with a perturbed look and calls out after the guidance counselor, "Seriously? This is the best use of your time?"

Lane doesn't turn around but raises two fingers in the air and yells back, "Second warning, Mr. Oliver!"

But Beck can't let it go. "That wasn't even sass!"

"What's going on now?" asks Tori, who'd been creeping up slowly towards them, unsure of how to approach her locker that they'd been blocking. Andre follows but keeps his distance.

Beck starts to explain, "Well, the morning had been fine until Jade–"

"_Me_!?" Jade screeches, "What did _I_ do? You're the one who leaves his gross hairbrush on the counter, _full of hair_! And you didn't put the cap back on the toothpaste! You know I hate that."

"You don't have to shriek at me over the blow dryer!"

"Why did you spend extra time today trying to look all nice? Are you trying to impress somebody?" Jade demands sharply. "You're already regretting your decision to get back together."

Beck makes sure to enunciate the words, "_I never said that_."

"You guys spent the night together?" Tori interrupts the two without thinking.

"No, I roll out of bed and then go to Beck's to get ready in the smallest washroom ever," Jade deadpans. She takes a moment to enjoy how Tori's trying not to look scandalized, but really, she thought everyone knew that Beck had free reign over his living quarters and why _wouldn't_ they take advantage of that? She turns to face him. "Yeah, how are you friends with this? Honestly, I could have just gotten you a parrot."

Tori fumes. "Well sometimes my brain takes a while to process things and I repeat them! People do it from time to time!"

Jade raises an eyebrow, letting the shrill girl reconsider her decision to lash out.

Andre pats Tori on the back. "Sorry, it's a bit of a sensitive topic for Tori here." She supports this explanation by looking miserable.

"Tori's a good friend," Beck tells Jade.

"And I'm not a good girlfriend?" she replies.

"That doesn't – what – how do you reach these conclusions?"

Tori scrunches up her face. "You guys give me whiplash."

"Good," Jade says and walks away. Beck says that he'll catch Tori and Andre later and then follows his girlfriend down the hall.

Tori shakes her head in despair. "They got back together so suddenly after such a long time apart. It's gotta be a weird change," she muses to Andre, beginning to fret a little. "What if they break up again?"

"Um, then we let them," he says.

Tori doesn't seem to like his answer. "Maybe they need just another little push."

Andre gives her an exaggerated shrug with his best '_oh well what're you gonna do about it?_' expression. To his dismay, he finds out that Tori, apparently, is incapable of indifference. The scheming look in her eye makes Andre feel the something-horrible-awaits kind of wonky.

"Tor," he says calmly, in hopes of not pushing her over the edge into whatever nonsensical idea might consume her this time, "I don't know if you should be meddling again. It can't be good for your blood pressure. Or mine."

"I'll have a plan before homeroom tomorrow. Meet me in the Asphalt Café for breakfast!"

* * *

At the end of the day, Robbie is at his locker restocking his emergency tissue boxes when Beck arrives, presumably to wait for Jade. They greet each other and lightly chatter about homework woes until they reach a lull in their conversation where Robbie decides to insert the question, "What's going on with you and Jade?"

On cue but not maliciously, Beck quips, "What's going on with you and Cat?"

Perhaps saddened by this reminder, Robbie furrows his brow. Beck already knows about the song, the invitation to the dance, the running away, the kiss, and the running away part two, which he can't tell is still going on or not because Cat and her family are on another one of their weird midweek vacations to San Francisco. Robbie wishes his life were like a TV show or a movie, where change actually happens and where issues get resolved.

There's not much for him to say other than, "The same thing that's always been going on between me and Cat I guess." He lets out a quiet sigh. "Do you ever feel like a hamster in a hamster ball, Beck?"

Robbie's been doling out hamster analogies for a while, ever since he rescued Fat Santa from Cat's toilet after her brother tried to simulate a miniature tornado water ride for the thing. Most of the time Beck's not sure where Robbie's getting at, but this time he ventures anyway, "Hamster balls still move forward, Rob."

"Oh, right. I mean in a hamster wheel."

"No," Beck says. "No, I've never really felt like a hamster."

"You guys don't get tired of fighting all the time?" Robbie asks innocently, perplexed.

Beck doesn't get much time to process his question because almost instantly after it'd been brought up, he hears the familiar thuds of Jade's boots on the floor that signal her arrival. She stops in front of Beck and drawls the word, "Hey," as she leans in to press a quick kiss to his lips.

Robbie uses his index finger to push up the bridge of his glasses and takes a deep breath that showcases all his sinus problems. "Hi, Jade," he says.

She looks over to acknowledge his existence for probably the first time that day. Maybe she's tired, or possibly just happy to see Beck, because she ends up saying hello back to Robbie instead of automatically dismissing him as usual. (Well, Cat isn't around and he isn't chasing her, so Jade supposes he doesn't have anything to do other than try to be noticed by other people.)

It's too late for her to take it back now, though; Robbie's already asking her how she's been out of politeness.

"Remember our rule?" she reminds him.

He looks disappointed. "No locker small talk."

"Good boy." Redirecting her attention to Beck, she asks, "Ready to go?"

.

"What was with Lane today and the two warnings he gave me? Is this even legitimate?" Beck is saying as they enter his RV. He pulls out the warning slip from his pocket to inspect its authenticity. Deeming it a joke, he lets it fall into his trash can.

Jade takes a seat on his bed and smirks. "You're such a rebel, Beck. Sass, that's what all the girls secretly want."

"I don't think Lane gets much to do these days." He shakes his head in amusement. Noticing a few articles of clothing that belong to Jade haphazardly folded on his chair, he retrieves them for her. "Oh, you keep forgetting to take these home."

"Thanks," she says, shoving the Cow-Wow outfit in her bag. She's already starting to leave her clothes here again.

"How did your history test go?"

"Fine. That kid Brandon has pretty good notes." She tugs on the suspenders that he likes to have droop down over his pants. "Why do you wear these? They serve no functional purpose."

"They look nice."

She snorts in response but yanks on one of them to pull him closer to her. He seems to get the point and bends down to press his lips to hers. She cups his jaw with one hand, but her fingers are cold, so he reaches up to wrap them in his own and transfer some heat.

"Wait," he says, straightening back up and letting go of her hand before he gets too lost in this. There was something he'd wanted to address. "Do we fight too much?"

Mildly annoyed, she pulls back from him too, scooting away from the edge of the bed and crossing her legs. "Uh, you're asking that _now_?"

He paces in a circle. "Our friends say we do."

"Like they know anything!"

"So you don't think so?"

"Babe, if I were mad at you, you'd know."

Beck pauses. Their spat in the morning had been about trivial things, as they usually were, nothing that kept him up at night wondering if she was going to leave him. Jade liked being snarky and vicious, but she never went about with the intent to maim or seriously injure, so he didn't see a problem with it. If anything, he didn't like that their arguments kept returning to how she doubted him and his recent, very public announcement that he'd wanted her back. "But the yelling seems … excessive lately? Is that healthy?"

"Eating five servings of vegetables a day is healthy, but how many people give a damn about that? Jeez, Beck, we fight but it's not like we're hoarding cheeseburgers over here."

He silently mulls over this issue some more, not entirely wanting to drop it.

Aggravated, Jade groans. Beck doesn't usually get distressed, but when he does he worries like an old man. "You didn't open the door because you didn't want to fight anymore, but you kissed me on stage because you said you wanted someone who stood up for herself. What exactly do you want?"

"I don't know." It doesn't sound as complicated in his head when he puts it like this, so he tells her, "I guess I just want you."

Beck's usually almost certain that Jade secretly has a thing for his sappiness, but right now she's just looking at him like he has half a brain. "How is _that_ supposed to fix anything?"

"Well, you don't seem to believe me!"

Now it's her turn to pause. She's never known what it's like not to be scared on losing him.

He realizes this too. "When I said I missed you, I meant it." After the Full Moon Jam, they'd come back here where they spent the rest of the evening together, sharing his too-small bed again for the first time in months while he waxed on about every little thing about her that he missed. She'd let him go on for a while before they went back to kissing.

"Do you trust me?" Beck asks.

"Yeah, I trust you."

Beck must have on his cheesy, overly sentimental grin if Jade's rolling her eyes at him in the irritated but secretly adoring way that she does. He's satisfied knowing they can both speak their mind without it being a huge deal. He's already decided that he likes it when people tell them their problems up front.

They are the way they are because that's the way they've been and will continue to be. It works, and he thinks he should feel lucky that it does, that Jade loves him. He does admit that it stopped working at one or two points, but those occurrences are in the past and the only thing to do now is to learn from them.

"Good, 'cause I love you," he says. Inevitably, maybe tomorrow, Jade will forget that he's told her this and that he doesn't want anyone else, but he makes a note to remind her every so often.

She hums softly as a reply, content because that line never fails to make her disturbingly mushy and also because this whole issue's finally over with.

That took a lot less time than he expected. He tells her this.

"I know, I was expecting to spend the rest of the afternoon talking about that, too, not like we have anything better to do like make out or anything."

Happy that they're on the same wavelength, he moves to lean her back onto the bed. He feels her reciprocated smile against his own lips. Yeah, he's definitely missed _this_.

* * *

Tori pretty much always means well, never hesitating to go out of her way to care about people, which is why Andre feels like a bad friend for tuning her out.

They're seated together on one of the tables in the Asphalt Café, eating breakfast burritos before classes start. Andre's enjoying his, happily eating, while Tori is too busy talking to have taken more than two bites.

She's exasperated at Beck and Jade's back-and-forth, she tells him. That's the gist of it. The rest is an impossible scheme involving puppies, bunnies, a live band, back-up singers, extra-thick padded sweaters and protective headgear, which are all supposed to come together to truly reunite the couple for good and sort through all their problems, basically accomplishing in half an hour what normal people would accomplish over months of therapy.

Andre waits a beat in case Tori is just joshing him. Maybe she's been helping people too much. Maybe it's finally getting to her, and she's lost sight of the real goal: simple, problem-free lives.

"Are you up for buying the confetti?"

Tori, incidentally, is not joshing him. He says warily, "Yesterday didn't look like trouble in paradise to me."

"They were fighting before noon! You know where that leads."

"An argument is part of their morning routine. I think it wakes them up."

"But I can't imagine being screamed at so early."

"That's why neither of us is dating Jade. Beck is."

"But we're all stuck _listening_ to them! Remember what that did to Robbie? Tears all over my blouse as he sobbed into my shoulder after one of their fights! We'd have to watch them sulk again, and then _someone's_ going to pull _me_ into a janitor's closet to fix things, so, you know, let's just do this before that happens."

Andre's silent for a moment. "So you aren't going to meddle anymore, right?"

"Meddle in what?" Jade asks, arriving from behind and then rounding the table to stand directly in front of them. She tightens her grip on the strap of her messenger bag and glares, appearing to be too angry to have just heard that last bit of the conversation.

Andre realizes with horror that they don't know how long she's been there. "Oh, nothing!" He fake laughs while elbowing Tori gently but pointedly.

"Tell me the truth or –" Jade smirks evilly. "– well, I'm sure you can fill in the blank."

Tori begins, "We – "

"She!"

"WE – " Tori glares at Andre, stretching the word into five syllables "– just thought that you and Beck needed a little reminder of how much you loved each other before you broke up." She finishes with a little hopeful, well-meaning grin as if Jade was ever going to look past the means to focus on both the end and Tori's good intentions.

Jade whips out an offended expression in an instant. "Are you trying to become Dr. Phil when you grow up? I don't believe your little altruism stunt. People get suspicious when other people _stick their nose in places where it doesn't belong,_" she grinds the last part out in a low tone before screeching in an abrupt crescendo, "Mind your own business!"

"Okay! Minding my own business now!" Tori yelps and kind of pathetically curls into Andre's side.

Andre wraps an arm around her and they quiver together like rodents. "It'd mean the world to my grandma to see me walk across that graduation stage," he insists. "Please don't kill us."

Jade places a hand on Andre's shoulder, close to his neck, and gives him a little squeeze. The breakfast burrito twists in his stomach. "Andre," she says in an eerily calm voice that could either go, '_Andre, I'm going to lop your head off'_ or '_Andre, do you have change for a five?'_

But she doesn't finish her sentence, and he supposes those scenarios will just be fodder for his nightmares because Beck arrives then, looking jovial despite his girlfriend's intense glare. "Hey, guys," he says as the tension ebbs away. "Jade, I was looking for you. What're you all doing here? And what's going on?"

Jade backs off Andre and crosses her arms. "These two caricatures think that we can't deal with our own relationship."

"I've saved you guys, like, twice!" Tori huffs.

Jade scowls. "Oh, what did you do, you got a dog that almost mauled Beck's father and then helped him date Meredith the cupcake girl."

Beck is quick to intervene before Tori can retaliate. "We appreciated the help, Tori, but you don't have to worry about us anymore. We got it covered." Then he has an arm around Jade's shoulders and presses a kiss to her temple. She scowls some more but remains silent thereafter.

"Terrific," Andre says. "Problem solved, would you look at that. All this for nothing." He tries to keep up a laugh while looking back and for between all three of his friends, hoping to make the girls lighten up.

Tori studies Beck and Jade for a moment before resigning with a sigh and a small smile. "Okay. You're right, I shouldn't have been trying to meddle. Sorry."

"It's okay," Beck tells her just as Jade starts to groan, "Ugh, where's my coffee?" She doesn't have time for these things in the mornings, or really ever. Their lives will never go anywhere if this is what occupies their time. She then shrugs Beck's arm off to go wait in the queue forming at The Grub Truck.

Tori feels a small amount of amused pity for Beck at that moment because he looks, well, like a confused puppy that's just had a soft cushion taken away from it for no reason at all. "So are you guys _really_ okay now?" she asks.

"Yeah. We're okay." Beck nods good-naturedly. "We're good. I know it can't be perfect all the time, you know? We yell a lot, but she's just … naturally emphatic."

Andre shrugs. "Hey, man, whatever floats your boat."

Then their attention shifts to Jade's voice rising above the appropriate level for background noise, and the three turn to see her berating Sinjin who's hunched over, wincing. She flings two yellow packets up in the air that land and become stuck in the boy's mossy hair. Her large coffee gets sloshed around too, spilling a bit on the pavement.

"I DON'T WANT SPLENDA. I WANT REAL SUGAR. ARE YOU CALLING ME FAT?" she yells in a voice that Tori has to assume only a Beck could love.

Beck, to his credit, looks untroubled. He takes his time crossing the distance to lazily swoop in and thread his fingers with Jade's. He gives her a small nudge, prompting her to grab her two sugars before they're wandering back inside the school, holding hands.

Andre turns to Tori. He doesn't need to say anything for her to promise she'll never try playing Cupid again. It works for about a week.


End file.
